The car glides into an underground entrance, where Lander parks and steps out. He circles the vehicle, opens my door and helps me out.
The borrowed trousers are too long, so I roll the waistband until the hems clear my socked feet. The concrete leeches cold up through the thin fabric.
“This is the Ministry of Magic’s main building,” he says, with an edge of smugness.
Apparently my earlier speech has not fallen on deaf ears. He has brought me here to prove he truly works for the Ministry.
Nothing like taking someone to a macabre building to prove a point.
From his jacket he produces a silver cuff. Before I can react, he grabs my wrist and snaps the cuff into place.
The band is too wide for my small arm; it chafes the bone. I wobble, suddenly dizzy, and brace myself against the doorframe. The smoky vapour of his magic sputters out; I can no longer see it. Whatever trickle of power I possessed is gone. I am cut off.
Great.
“Anti-magic. Can’t be too careful. Come on.”
He strides away.
Punished for not answering his question, and now I am a suspect, not a victim. I am doing a marvellous job of protecting myself.
“Come on,” he says.
When I hesitate, he doubles back, takes my elbow and guides me forward. His grip is firm, impersonal, yet my skin prickles all the same.
When I was a girl, Father insisted that my siblings and I learn to ride. I remember one day we spent hours in the saddle; when I dismounted my pony, my limbs were so stiff I could not bend them, and I marched like a tin soldier for several days.
That is how my body feels now—as though I am made of tin.
My socks squeak on the polished stone, and it takes a few awkward steps before I realise I need to bend my knees. Next I force my hips to cooperate, tottering beside Lander, who towers over this smaller body.
Each step grows easier; my breathing steadies, muscleswarming. I’m quietly pleased to have mastered my gait, though his long legs take one stride for every three of mine.
The interior is cavernous, the ceiling vanishing into shadow. It feels like a labyrinth. The stone swallows light, but silver veins run through the walls, pulsing with power.
I can see the pulses, though I feel nothing, thanks to the cuff. They cast shifting patterns across the chequered floor. Enchanted sconces flare to life as we pass, as though the building wakes beneath our feet.
Snatches of voices echo down the corridors, a low bureaucratic hum beneath the throb of magic.
We halt at a door. He swipes his palm over what looks like plain stone; it chimes and clicks open.
“Go on in.”
Bracing for concrete and a drain, I step inside. Wrong again. It is not an interrogation room. It is an immaculate office.
Books line black shelves, punctuated by the occasional magical artefact. A skull topped with a candle rests on one, and I cannot decide whether it is a joke. The room smells of parchment, old books and Lander’s vanilla–coconut scent, threaded with something sharper, like ozone after lightning.
Even the desk is black. Why anyone would want more black here escapes me, yet the room suits him, especially with that swirl of spiky magic darkness that clings to his skin.
He gestures to a chair. “Take a seat.”
I sit. My legs dangle; my toes barely skim the floor. I suppress a groan. The ley line could at least have granted me a few more inches—I am scarcely five feet tall.
Although any human body would feelsmall, even if I were seven feet, I would still feel oddly diminished. I do not know whether I will ever grow accustomed to going from such vastness to being compressed into this meat suit. I hate that I feel weak and exposed.
Lander pours water, places a glass before me, pours one for himself and sits.
The room is cold. A shiver rattles through me, part chill, part fear. I thought the drive had drained that emotion, yet it resurfaces, knotting low in my stomach.
